Lennay Kekua, the supposed fake late girlfriend of Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te'o, "is real," according to a former NFL player who said he met her in person twice in 2011.

Reagan Mauia, who was cut by the Arizona Cardinals last October, told ESPN.com on Wednesday that he was introduced in June of that year to a woman claiming to be Kekua. The meetings took place in American Samoa where Mauia, Pittsburgh Steelers safety Troy Polamalu and other Polynesian teammates were doing charity work.

"This was before her and Manti," Mauia said Wednesday evening. "I don't think Manti was even in the picture, but she and I became good friends. We would talk off and on, just checking up on each other kind of thing. I am close to her family. When she was going through the loss of her father, I was—I offered a comforting shoulder and just someone to bounce her emotions off. That was just from meeting her in Samoa."

Mauia told ESPN that he was introduced to Kekua by Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a close friend of Te'o's. Mauia believes that Tuiasosopo was Kekua's cousin.

"She was tall," he told ESPN. "Volleyball-type of physique. She was athletic, tall, beautiful. Long hair. Polynesian. She looked like a model ... "

There were no comments from Polamalu or the other teammates in the ESPN.com story.

Deadspin.com reported Wednesday that Kekua never existed, and that her persona was used to perpetrate elaborate hoaxes. According to friends and relatives of Tuiasosopo's who spoke with Deadspin, Tuiasosopo created Kekua online in 2008. One unnamed friend of Tuiasosopo told Deadspin that he/she believed Te'o was "in on" the hoax and did it for publicity.

The site reported that Te'o first met Kekua online in September 2011. The "relationship" generated national attention last year after word spread that Kekua had died of leukemia in September, around the same time Te'o's grandmother had died.